Floor protecting sheets



V. E. WEST FLOOR PROTECTING SHEETS Filed Aug. 4, 1950 April 5, 1955 o o N oooooomoo o oo ooo ooo 000W.

M O mldmvlfnwlldllnwlwldll dldldldllnwdfdwlmlmlwmml@QlQIQ G Old E H United States Patent O FLOOR PROTECTING SHEETS Victor E. West, Chicago, Ill., assiguor to Standard Railway Equipment Manufacturing Company, Chicago, Ill., a corporation of Delaware Application August 4, 1950, Serial No. 177,663

2 Claims. (Cl. 189-34) This invention relates to railway freight cars, and has for its object to provide means for protecting the wooden flooring now in general use in such type of rolling stock.

Such wooden flooring usually comprises tongue and groove boards which extend transversely of the car resting upon longitudinal members forming part of the car underframe, and the iioor protection used, comprises metallic sheets which are perforated so that lading may be secured to the ooring through said apertures or perforations, and bolts extend through the protecting sheets, oor boards and underframe members for holding the iloor boards and protecting sheets in place. This method of bolting the sheets and iloor boards to the underframe is common in the art, and a further object of my invention is to provide a novel means of attaching flat unanged floor protecting sheets to the car oor which results in a much easier application of the sheets to the igotri, thereby lowering the cost of application by the caru1 er.

A further object of the invention is to provide a welding strip insertable between spaced oor boards, said strips having means engageable with the tongues and grooves of said boards to thereby hold the two together, said strip having a flat upper surface in plane with the top of said boards, so that iiat unanged protecting sheets may be laid over said boards with adjacent edges meeting over said lat surface and whereby the sheets may be welded to eachother and to said strip. With such a structure either the boards or the welding strip only need be attached to the car underframe and whichever is attached will hold the other and the floor protecting sheets in position. No seam bolts for the plates are required in either instance.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear in the following description thereof.

Referring now to the accompanying drawing, forming part of this application, and wherein like reference characters indicate like parts,

Fig. l is a plan view of part of a railway car floor adjacent a doorway showing the invention.

Figs. 2 to 7, inclusive, are enlarged cross sectional views illustrating various modifications of welding strips which may be used in carrying out the invention.

The usual parts of a railway car are shown, such as the side sill 2; oor Stringer 3; iloor boards 4, in this instance tongue and groove boards, door posts 5 and 6 defining a doorway therebetween, the floor protecting sheets 7 and threshold plate 8 The improved floor protector comprises simply a plurality of flat sheets 7 which extend from side to side of the car, at least between the doorways, at which location the boards are subjected to the greatest abuse due to trucking the lading thereover when loading or unloading the car. Car doorways are usually six feet wide, and, for convenience in handling, the protecting sheets are about two and one-half feet wide, so that three such sheets would cover the floor area between the doorways and a small area beyond. The width of the sheets is also governed by the width of the boards used, because certain of said boards are laid with a space therebetween in which space a welding strip is applied, and the adjacent edges of a pair of said sheets must occur over a welding strip so that they can be welded together and to the strips in one welding operation. Accordingly, the iloor boards 4 are applied to the car underframe in the ordinary way, except that certain of the boards are laid in spaced relation with one of the welding strips therebetween, as shown in Figs. 2 to 7 inclusive. All modiications of said strips are shaped so as to interlock with the tongue and the groove of said spaced boards, and so as to provide an upper surface in plane with the upper surface of said boarls so that the protecting sheets can be welded thereto.

In Fig. 2 the welding strip is shown at 20, it being a solid metallic strip equal in width to the thickness of the board, and provided with a longitudinal tongue 21, which ts within groove 22 of a board, and also provided with a longitudinal groove 23 into which ts the tongue 24 of the adjacent board. The edges of the protecting sheet 7 meet in slightly spaced relation over the iiat upper surface of strip 20 and are welded thereto and to each other, as shown at 25.

In Fig. 3 the welding strip is prefabricated from plate material having a flat upper surface 30 in plane with upper surface of adjacent spaced boards 4 and depending spaced legs 31 and 32 which terminate in outwardly turned flanges 33 and 34 tting within longitudinal recesses cut in the lower outer margins of said boards 4. Leg 31 is formed with an outturned bend 35 which tits within groove 36 of one of the spaced boards, and leg 32 is formed with an inturned outwardly facing channel 37 within which tongue 38 of the adjacent floor board 4 lits. The edges of the protecting sheets 7 overlie surface 30 and are welded thereto and to each other, as at 39.

In Fig. 4, the welding strip is formed in two angularly shaped parts which, when welded together, form a box section. One part has a flat upper surface 40 and a depending leg 41, which leg 41 is provided with an outturned bend 4Z fitting within groove 43 of one floor board 4, and said leg 41 extends to the plane of the bottom of said board. The other part has a at bottom 44 and an upstanding leg 45 which has an inturned outwardly facing channel 46, within which tits the tongue 47 of the ad jacent floor board. The two parts are welded together, as at 48 and 49, thus making a complete tongue and groove box section. The protecting sheets 7 meet our portion 40 and are welded thereto and to each other as in the other modifications.

The modications of welding strip shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4, it will be noted are in width equal to the thickness of the floor boards, and, therefore, the bottom surface of said welding strips may themselves be secured in any acceptable manner to the longitudinal members of the car underframe, on which they also rest, and since the said strips interlock with the said boards, it would not be necessary for said boards to be secured to the underframe, as the strips would hold the boards and the floor protecting sheets in place. In other words, either the boards or the strips may be secured to the underframe and whichever is so secured would hold the other and the floor protecting sheets in place.

In the modication shown in Fig. 5, the welding strip `is formed of plate material somewhat in the form of the letter Z, having a at upper portion 50, an intermediate portion 51 connected to portion 50 by web 52 and a lower portion 53 connected to portion 51 by the material being formed into a U-bend which just fits within groove 54 in one board 4. Portions 51 and 53 are so formed as to overlap and engage tongue 55 of an adjacent board. Sheets 7 meet over portion 50 and are welded thereto and to each other as in the other modifications.

The welding strip shown in Fig. 6 is also formed of plate material having a hat upper portion 60 in the plane of adjacent spaced boards 4 and with depending legs 61 and 62. Leg 61 is formed with an outturned bend 63 which snugly ts within groove 64 in one board 4. Leg 62 is formed with an `inturned outwardly facing channel 65 which overlaps tongue 66 of the adjacent board 4. Channel 64 meets the lower arm of bend 63 and is welded thereto, as at 67, thus forming a hollow box section. Protecting sheets 7 meet over portion 60| and are welded thereto and to each other as in the other modifications.

Fig. 7 shows a welding strip formed of an ordinary T section, the stem 70 of which extends downwardly between the spaced edges of the boards 4 and the flange 71 of which rests in gained out portions 72 and 73 at the upper outer margins of said boards 4. Stem 70 is provided with a plurality of aligned elongated openings, and a portion of the tongue 74 extends therethrough and into the groove 75 of the adjacent board, said tongue being cut away between said openings. The protecting sheets 7 are welded to each other and to the flange 71 as in the other modifications.

In all of these latter modifications, Figs. 5 to 7, the width of the welding strips is less than the thickness of the boards so that the floor boards in these instances are of necessity secured to the car underframe in the usual manner. The welding strips interlock with the tongues and grooves of the boards and are, therefore, held in place thereby, and the strips in turn hold in place the floor protecting sheets which are Welded to said strips.

In all modifications the floor boards are laid on the underframe'with a welding strip between every two or three boards and cramped together until the tongues and grooves firmly engage the interlocking tongues and grooves of the welding strips. The boards are bolted or otherwise secured to the underframe and then the protecting sheets are laid over the floor boards and welding strips and the meeting edges of the sheets are welded t0 the strip thereunder. The protecting sheets may be welded to the strips which occur under the body part of the floor sheets by welding around the edges of the apertures in said sheets which occur over said strips, as indicated at 80.

l. In a railway car having a wood flooring comprising a plurality of tongued and grooved boards secured to the car underframe, certain of said boards being in spaced relation, a welding strip, fitting the space between said spaced boards, said strip having a at upper surface in plane with the upper surface of said spaced boards, and spaced depending sides, one of said sides having an outwardly extending portion fitting within the groove of one of said spaced boards, the other of said sides having an outwardly facing channel portion receiving the tongue of the other of said spaced boards, fioor protecting sheets resting upon said boards with the edges of a pair of said sheets meeting over the flat upper surface of said welding strip, and weld metal securing the edges of said pair of sheets together and to the upper surface of said welding strip.

2. In a railway car having a wood flooring comprising a plurality of tongued and grooved boards secured to the car underframe, certain of said boards being in spaced relation, a welding strip, fitting the space between said spaced hoards, said strip comprising a prefabricated metal section having a flat upper surface in plane with the upper surface of said spaced boards, and spaced depending legs, one of said legs having an outturned bend fitting within the groove of one of said spaced boards, the other of said legs having an inturned outwardly facing channel portion receiving the tongue of the other of said spaced boards, floor protecting sheets resting upon said boards with the edges of a pair of said sheets meeting over the flat upper surface of said Welding strip, and Weld metal securing the edges of said pair of sheets together and to the upper surface of said welding strip.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 994,116 Boyer June 6, 1911 1,274,953 Stoehr Aug. 6, 1918 2,015,568 McClintock Sept. 24, 1935 2,116,737 Urbain May 10, 1938 2,117,397 Bonsall May 17, 1938 2,189,126 Bonsall Feb. 6, 1940 2,565,705 Swann Aug. 28, 1951 

